Naturally occurring lutetium (71Lu) is composed of 1 stable isotope175Lu (97.41% natural abundance) and one long-lived radioisotope, 176Lu with a half-life of 3.78 × 1010 years (2.59% natural abundance). Thirty-four radioisotopes have been characterized, with the most stable, besides 176Lu, being 174Lu with a half-life of 3.31 years, and 173Lu with a half-life of 1.37 years. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 9 days, and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than half an hour. This element also has 18 meta states, with the most stable being 177mLu (t1/2 160.4 days), 174mLu (t1/2 142 days) and 178mLu (t1/2 23.1 minutes).

Geologically exceptional samples are known in which the isotopic composition lies outside the reported range. The uncertainty in the atomic mass may exceed the stated value for such specimens.

Values marked # are not purely derived from experimental data, but at least partly from systematic trends. Spins with weak assignment arguments are enclosed in parentheses.

Uncertainties are given in concise form in parentheses after the corresponding last digits. Uncertainty values denote one standard deviation, except isotopic composition and standard atomic mass from IUPAC, which use expanded uncertainties.